Popular Diet Types – A Review

Diet Types are important to know. I have copy pasted a number of reviews of some diets from blogs and websites. My aim here is not to be an expert on diets as much as on fitness lifestyle. Read the diets. They all have some things in common. They are written by people who specialize in the field. They generally recognize the value of counting calories and exercising as part of an overall fitness plan. Each diet type has something to offer.

• The Structure House Weight Loss Plan

For more than 30 years its author, Gerard J. Musante, PhD, has been working quietly and very successfully running the actual Structure House, a Durham, North Carolina-based residential treatment center for obese adults. That's a lot of time spent with patients and a lot of attention paid to the broad factors that affect weight loss -- particularly the relationship people have with diet type.But can an excellent residential program transfer to an effective at-home plan? The answer is a resounding "yes," which is how this below-the-radar plan grabbed highest honors from its better-known rivals.

• The Step Diet

We all know that walking 10,000 steps a day can really make a huge difference health wise. But now we also know that the diet type inspired by this fundamental, healthy approach to movement and activity is a big winner. And it even comes with a pedometer, a device that studies have shown can be a huge motivator for staying active and losing weight.Cut food intake to 75 percent of what you currently eat. This plan is for people who like things simple. Simply cut back on what you normally eat. With suggestions (not hard-core regimens) for making healthy meals and a food diary for building mindfulness, this plan can work well for dieters who like to have daily control and choices.This is a doable, concrete approach to adding daily physical activity and losing pounds.

• Weight Watchers

It's a classic for a reason. It works.And over the years, this gold-standard weight-loss program that harnesses the power of group support to help motivate dieters has kept up with science, not to mention changing lifestyles. Dieters following the program can choose from two distinct weight-loss approaches. The first, Weight Watcher's famous points-based Flex Plan, which is packed with major education on making wise and healthy food choices. The second, the Core Plan, focuses dieters on eating nutritious, satisfying foods--without counting calories.

• The Eating Well Diet

Author Jean Harvey-Berino, PhD, RD, developed the fundamentals of the Eating Well Diet at the University of Vermont, where she chairs the department of nutrition and food science. The focus on behavioral changes--including finding and facing eating triggers, eating and shopping mindfully, and cultivating regular, joyful exercise habits--combined with a 28-day mix-and-match menus gives this diet credibility.

• The Volumetrics Eating Plan

Nutritionist Barbara Rolls, PhD, has tapped into a fundamental human quality: We like to feel full. This may sound obvious, but it's based, in fact, on extensive work Rolls has done as director of the Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior at Pennsylvania State University. Rolls says you'll eat better and lose weight if you focus on the energy density of foods. And her Volumetrics plan explains how low-density foods like fruits and vegetables, as well as soups and stews, fill you up without overloading you with calories.

• The Best Life Diet

Best Life has three phases that each dieter is encouraged to embark upon at his or her own pace, a strategy that leads to slimming, nutritional eating and increased physical activity. The author doesn't advocate keeping strict track of calories, which may make the Best Life more challenging for rule-loving dieters.

• The Solution

Squarely facing the emotional and behavioral underpinnings of overeating, dietitian Laurel Mellin's method is based on The Shapedown Program, a successful weight-management plan she created for overweight children and adolescents in the late 1970s. Mellin views obesity not so much in terms of diet type and exercise but as another expression of the interaction of mind, body, and lifestyle. And The Solution, designed for dieters of all ages, targets five root causes of weight problems: unbalanced eating, low energy, body shame, setting ineffective limits, and weak self-nurturing skills.

• You: On a Diet

This book offers a lot of education amidst the menu plans, which include recipes for Stuffed Whole Wheat Pizza, Grilled Peanut Shrimp with Sesame Snow Peas, and Sweet Beet and Gorgonzola Salad. The weight-loss trajectory centers on cutting about 500 calories per day.

• The Sonoma Diet

There's an undercurrent of celebration in this best-selling diet that continues to inspire with delicious recipes using staples of Mediterranean eating: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, fish, and nuts.Dietitian and PhD Connie Guttersen's plan opens with a strident 10-day jump-start phase called "Wave One," designed to purge habits of eating sugar and highly processed foods. Exercise is encouraged but not actively prescribed.

• The Spectrum

Famous in the 1990s for advocating a program to combat heart disease, Dr. Dean Ornish, MD, has been criticized for prescribing nutritional edicts that are just too hard to sustain. The Spectrum, Ornish's newest diet type, both broadens and softens his program by moving along four separate paths to health--nutrition, exercise, stress management, and personal relationships.